Hess, Charlotte, and Elinor Ostrom. 2005. "A Framework for Analyzing the Knowledge Commons (Draft)", in Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice, Hess, C and Ostrom, E, Eds.. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Abstract

"Who hasn't heard of the six blind men of Indostan encircled around an elephant? The six-one a political scientist, one a librarian, one an economist, one a law professor, one a computer scientist, and one an anthropologist-discover, based on their own investigations, that the object before them is a wall, spear, a snake, a tree, a fan, and a rope. The story fits well with the question that propelled this chapter: how can an interdisciplinary group of scholars best analyze a highly complex, rapidly evolving, elephantine resource such as knowledge? Trying to get one's hands around knowledge as a shared resource is even more challenging when we factor in the economic, legal, technological, political, social and psychological components-each complex in their own right-that make up this global commons."